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I keep replying to you by the way because I'm really hoping you are going to have the aha moment that is holding you back here. Again, you are misunderstanding

I keep replying to you by the way because I'm really hoping you are going to have the aha moment that is holding you back here. Again, you are misunderstanding the difference between syntax and how it is used. Json and xml aren't data structures. They are syntaxes, which are commonly serialised into a data structure. (Usally a tree). S-expressions are also syntaxes that can be parsed into a data structure. Did you know that C# is also a syntax that can be parsed into a data structure? The Roslyn compiler does this, which allows for symbolic code manipulation and generation. Did you know that's how almost every programming language parser works? They will tokenise a syntax into a symbolic data structure which will then either be interpreted and executed or output a binary. You can quite easily write a parser for xml that uses it as a programming language. Two well known examples of this include xslt and xhtml. Xhtml is even one of your lauded 4th gen declarative languages. Whether or not the language is popular enough to have multiple parsers isn't relevant to the class of language that it is. In the example of a c++ program that reads xml into a tree, and then converts that xml into sql to be executed on a database, that xml syntax has become a 4th gen domain specific language. The important distinction between languages and data structures is the the implementation of the parser/evaluator and what it does with the text or symbols that it reads. A language implies execution and a datastruture implies serialisation.

ttfkam 4y ago
Oh come on. You are basically arguing that Python is just syntax, not a programming language; it's just the interpreter that parses the text and makes it go. No duh! You've made a distinction without a difference. If an XML dialect were to be parsed by a processor to declaratively perform a sequence of tasks, the AST is not relevant to this discussion, only the tasks being performed. The XML dialect—the semantic structure behind it—is what I'm discussing. JSON and XML as they are used today are "just syntax", but they are examples of syntax that almost universally are parsed directly into data structures. The Liquibase XML dialect on the other hand moves beyond a simple data structure into a declarative language for migrating database structures from one form to another by virtue of the Liquibase engine. SQL is not "just syntax" any more than your speech is "just phonemes". Yes, English, Xhosa, and Mandarin are all just collections of phonemes. All written languages are "just syntax" waiting to be processed by smart meat. It is needlessly reductive. SQL absolutely implies execution in a way that JSON/XML do not. However, the style of execution is clearly different between SQL and C#. That style can accurately be described as set-oriented execution, at a higher level than 3rd-gen languages such as Python or C#. Writing a parser for SQL (or XHTML) is a very different exercise from processing the AST from that parsed SQL/XHTML if that processing happens immediately after the parsing step and is largely driven by that AST. Relational database engines are interpreters for SQL.

ttfkam 4y ago

Oh come on. You are basically arguing that Python is just syntax, not a programming language; it's just the interpreter that parses the text and makes it go. No duh! You've made a distinction without a difference. If an XML dialect were to be parsed by a processor to declaratively perform a sequence of tasks, the AST is not relevant to this discussion, only the tasks being performed. The XML dialect—the semantic structure behind it—is what I'm discussing. JSON and XML as they are used today are "just syntax", but they are examples of syntax that almost universally are parsed directly into data structures. The Liquibase XML dialect on the other hand moves beyond a simple data structure into a declarative language for migrating database structures from one form to another by virtue of the Liquibase engine. SQL is not "just syntax" any more than your speech is "just phonemes". Yes, English, Xhosa, and Mandarin are all just collections of phonemes. All written languages are "just syntax" waiting to be processed by smart meat. It is needlessly reductive. SQL absolutely implies execution in a way that JSON/XML do not. However, the style of execution is clearly different between SQL and C#. That style can accurately be described as set-oriented execution, at a higher level than 3rd-gen languages such as Python or C#. Writing a parser for SQL (or XHTML) is a very different exercise from processing the AST from that parsed SQL/XHTML if that processing happens immediately after the parsing step and is largely driven by that AST. Relational database engines are interpreters for SQL.